Saturday, October 9, 2010

It is okay if you are gay ... Stop Bullying Now!

which is my contribution for the project that was created
by writer and columnist Dan Savage.

______________________________

Bullying, brutality and violence against gay kids and teenagers costs lives. Every year, and everywhere in the world.

In 2008, talkshow host Ellen de Generes took up the case of 15 year old Lawrence "Larry" King, an openly gay teenager who had been killed by another teen, just for being gay. Ellen sent out a intense message on her show, calling out for equality, and against ignorance, prejudices and intolerance.

In 2008, this one case was all over the news. In 2009, though, it was the suicide of already two kids that everyone spoke about:

Carl-Joseph Walker-Hoover and Jaheem Herrera, who killed themselves, as they could not take any more suffering from anti-gay picking, teasing and bullying at school.

Carl-Joseph and Jaheem were only 11 years old.

Again, Ellen set an example, by taking up this devastatingly sad topic on her TV show, and by sending out a sensitive and all the same strong and emotional signal to all her viewers.

But 2010 saw even more suicides for anti-gay bullying in the media than the years before. Within only a few weeks and months, four gay teenagers ended their lives, and two more victims were to be mourned still, after Ellen, yet again, spoke out on her show.

With a campaign named "It gets better", initiated by writer and columnist Dan Savage, gay people upload videos, and by that step up and send out a message to kids and teens that it's worth to cling to life, because it holds so much in store for them, and to "tough it out" during High School, during which so much bullying happens.

But this message, this prospect of a better future, is not enough.

All of us need to start taking action, here and now, to support gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender kids and teenagers who get offended, abused and terrorized because they are "different" ... just as well as any other kid that suffers from being bullied needs our help!

We must help them, so they can make it to that future, living their lives and realizing their potential.